Voter revolt in Amsterdam

In the 21 March municipal election, many Amsterdammers voted for new parties. The map below shows the effect this had on parties that already had seats on the city council. Red circles represent polling stations where the established parties lost; the rare green circles show where they won. The size of the circles corresponds to their gain or loss in percentage points.

Established parties lost across the city, but less so in Centrum and Zuid. The voter revolt was felt most in the peripheral districts Nieuw-West, Noord and Zuidoost, followed by parts of West and Oost. At some polling stations, support for the established parties declined by 15 to over 30 percentage points, with a peak of 43 percentage points.

The success of the new parties has been explained by ethnic background (especially DENK gained substantial ethnic minority support), but there’s also a socio-economic component. The chart below, showing results at the neighbourhood level, illustrates this. The share of votes for the new parties DENK, FvD, BIJ1 plus ChristenUnie is larger than the loss of the established parties, because they also won votes from parties that didn’t make the city council four years ago.

The new parties got their votes mainly in the less affluent neighbourhoods of Amsterdam, as measured by the average value of houses. This doesn’t have much impact on pro-market parties like VVD and D66, which get most of their votes in the richer parts of the city. For the social-democrat PvdA and socialist SP, things are different. The chart below shows what happened to their voters. Grey circles represent the 2014 election; red ones the situation in 2017/2018 (the scale on the y-axis is slightly different from the one above).

First, it should be noticed that most circles have moved to the right: the value of houses has increased significantly over the past years. This effect tends to be somewhat stronger in richer neighbourhoods. As a result, inequality has increased.

In 2014, PvdA and SP had considerable support in the less affluent neighbourhoods, but those are also the neighbourhoods where they lost most on 21 March. By now, their support there is hardly larger than in the richer neighbourhoods anymore. This effect is strongest for the PvdA (note that this effect doesn’t apply to other left-wing parties like GroenLinks).

Over the past years, concern has grown over Amsterdam’s social divide. The 21 March election outcome can be seen as a reflection of this inequality. In the less affluent peripheral neighbourhoods, established parties lost votes, as new parties grew.

The winner of the election, green party GroenLinks, has opted not to invite these new parties to the negotiations for a coalition agreement. In itself, there’s nothing wrong with that choice. Meanwhile, the new city government will need to come up with a credible answer to the city’s social divide. GroenLinks has often identified this as one of the key issues that need to be addressed.